Jerry Rice was never lazy. Even his idea of retirement hasn’t been lazy; he puts more work into out-foxtrotting Master P than I’ve put into anything in my life. So it makes sense that when asked about Randy Moss on ESPN Radio, the greatest wide receiver of all time would take personal offense to a guy who could’ve been even better had he ever woken up on time, tied his shoes properly or given a sh*t. Via a transcript of the appearance courtesy of Pro Football Talk:

“It was hard for me to swallow because I was not as talented and I had to work harder. To see a guy with that much talent not give it 100 percent, it was almost like a little slap in the face. But Randy was Randy.

“He could have been one of the greatest if he had worked just a little bit harder. I don’t think he wanted to give it 100 percent. You never knew what you were going to get with Randy. Sometimes you’d get the unbelievable guy, the amazing guy. Other times you’d get the guy that took a couple plays off.”

It’s an understandable beef, understandable to the point of being indisputable, really, because who hasn’t dogpiled on Randy Moss about being lazy at this point? And I’m sure they don’t have anything to do with Rice being brought on by ESPN as an NFL analyst or ESPN’s incessant need to say controversial things to make news about people who play sports. I came [ ] this close to getting a job at ESPN by sending them 30,000 words about how stupid Tom Brady’s hair looks. They asked me to write something about Brett Favre’s stop-and-go retirement and I choked. I mean, what could one possibly say about that?

Anyway, best case scenario is that in ten years Rice is still the greatest WR ever and makes chuckleface on ESPN every Sunday afternoon, and Randy Moss gains 50 pounds and tells himself how good he could’ve been in the dressing room mirror.